---
title: But the bottle neck did not recognize the old maid; he had not been… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the bottle neck did not recognize the old maid; he had not been listening to what she had related, perhaps because he was thinking so much about her. Who acts: bottle neck, neck, maid. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck, with its dependency 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bottle Neck, sentence 155

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But the bottle neck did not recognize the old maid; he had not been listening to what she had related, perhaps because he was thinking so much about her.

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**Who acts:** bottle neck, neck, maid · **What happens:** not recognize, not listen, relate, think · **To what, where:** old maid

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bottle neck, neck, maid), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:1012`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:13:155
# text = But the bottle neck did not recognize the old maid; he had not been listening to what she had related, perhaps because he was thinking so much about her.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	bottle	bottle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	recognize	recognize	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
15	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	aux	_	_
16	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	parataxis	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	obl	_	_
19	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	related	relate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	18	acl:relcl	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
23	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
24	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
25	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
28	so	so	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	much	much	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
30	about	about	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obl	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **recognize** | past · do-support | the bottle neck | the old maid |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer maid=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **listen** | past · perfect · progressive | neck |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to what=Theme |
| 3 | **relate** | past · perfect | maid |  |  |  |  |  | vn relate-86.2-2 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **think** *speech: other* | past · progressive | neck |  |  |  |  | about maid; perhaps *property* | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about she=Topic |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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